Old letters - 3
When I moved to the U.S., my aunt, my father's eldest sister, gave me one of her sarees. "This saree is very special to me," she said. I don't know how many times I've kicked myself for not asking why.( If only I hadn't been so horribly tongue-tied, that pistachio green dhakai saree, instead of sitting dumbly in my suitcase, would have become a conjurer of memories from an unusual life.) I could have asked that question any time in the eleven years that followed, before my aunt passed away at sixty seven from agonizing complications caused by her lifelong illness. It's too late now. The thing is, I was more than usually shy with this aunt because I hadn't known her in my childhood, hadn't sat with my arms around her neck while she chatted with my mom or fallen asleep in her lap like I had done with my other aunts. In fact, I hadn't even met her before I was twelve. She had broken multiple social and moral (according to her father) conventions...